The Nobel peace prize-winning editor of the Russian independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta has said he was attacked on a train in Russia over Moscow’s war in Ukraine by an assailant who poured red paint on him.
Dmitry Muratov said in a post to Telegram the incident happened on Thursday on a train heading from Moscow south-east to the city of Samara when the assailant shouted: “Muratov, here’s one for our boys.” He said his eyes were “burning terribly” after the assault and posted a selfie from the train toilet.
Novaya Gazeta was one of the last major independent media outlets critical of Vladimir Putin’s government after others either shut or had their websites blocked following the invasion of Ukraine, but announced on 28 March it was suspending operations for the duration of the war after it received a second warning from the state censor, Roskomnadzor.
It had earlier removed much of its war reporting from its website after Russia passed a law threatening jail terms of up to 15 years for information deemed by Russian authorities to be fake, as Muratov attempted to continue publishing Novaya Gazeta, reporting on the war and on the impact of sanctions, while obeying a directive that forbids journalists from describing the conflict as a war or invasion.
The second warning came a day after Muratov spoke with the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in a group interview with Russian journalists that Roskomnadzor quickly banned.
Journalists from the paper this week announced the launch of Novaya Gazeta Europe, a new publication to be staffed by employees who have left Russia and will cover Russian affairs in different languages for domestic and international audiences.
Its editor-in-chief, Kirill Martynov, told the Moscow Times it would be separate from Novaya Gazeta “both legally and in practice” and no one would work for both titles at the same time.
“We, journalists of Novaya Gazeta who were forced to leave Russia due to a virtual ban on our profession, are happy to announce that Novaya Gazeta Europe, an outlet that shares our values and standards, is beginning its work,” Martynov said in a statement.
Muratov’s account of the attack was posted to the Novaya Gazeta Europe Telegram channel.
Novaya Gazeta was established in 1993 after the breakup of the Soviet Union and investigated corruption inside and outside Russia, as well as the long wars in Chechnya.
Muratov, the paper’s longtime editor, shared the 2021 Nobel peace prize with Maria Ressa, a journalist from the Philippines. He dedicated his award to the memory of six of his paper’s journalists who were murdered for their work.
In 2021 Novaya Gazeta said its offices in Moscow had been targeted in a chemical attack.
The formal reasoning for why Novaya Gazeta was warned a second time remains unclear. Roskomnadzor told the state news agency Tass that the newspaper had failed to identify an unnamed non-governmental organisation as a “foreign agent” in its reporting, as required by Russian law, but did not specify the report in question.
Fake news under Russia’s recently passed media law can include any mention of Russian forces harming civilians or suffering losses on the battlefield.
